Federal Government and Local Government as Distinguished in Practice. The description which has been given of a federal system is sufficient to show that, in such a scheme of government, the member States occupy a position which resembles that of the local government areas of unitary States to which considerable autonomous powers are given. One is therefore justified in asking what precisely are the characteristics which distinguish a federally organized government from a unitary government in which wide discretionary powers and liberal rights of self-government have been granted to local areas? Or, to state the question in another form, in just what respects do the member States of a federally organized State differ from the autonomous administrative areas of a unitary State?

The difference is considerable, but, as has been already pointed out, the distinction does not lie in the possession by the member States of any part of a sovereignty which is not possessed by the local governing areas. Both the member States and the local areas derive such powers as they possess from the sovereign State of which they are constituent parts. The governments of both are local agencies for the purposes of the central government. Their political powers are emanations from the sovereignty of the National State. They have a legal status only as parts of the Government of that State, and no status independently of it. In these juristic aspects they are alike. As a matter of practical fact, however, there are important differences between the members of a definite manner, the States derive their power from the Union in a permissive and general manner. To be completely scientific, then, in our nomenclature and emancipate ourselves completely from the power of customary phrases, we should give the name State only to the Union and find some other term to designate its members. In America we have already the suitable title Commonwealth.'"

This is an interesting suggestion, but for the reasons indicated above, not a practicable one.

Federal Union and the autonomous administrative districts of a unitary State.

In the first place, though not recognized as sovereign entities, the members of a federal State so far resemble sovereign States that, except as qualified by federal obligations, they usually stand towards each other as independent and foreign powers. This means that each member body constitutes a jurisdiction outside of which none of its acts, executive, legislative or judicial,-have any force. Thus, a law enacted by one of the federal units, or a writ issued by one of its courts, has no operative force outside of its own territorial limits, and no one of its officials can exercise any official authority beyond such borders. This is the general principle which applies between sovereign States, and it applies to the members of a federated union subject only to such provisions as may exist in the national Constitution with regard to inter-member relations. Thus, in the United States, notwithstanding the constitutional provisions which have been cited with regard to interstate comity, and to the giving of full faith and credit by each State to the public acts of the other States, it still remains true that the States are without the legal power to issue a judicial writ upon which the presence of a witness who is in another State may be obtained, and a notice of the beginning of a suit against a non-resident does not give jurisdiction to the courts of a State except in those cases which are known as actions in rem. And a judgment obtained in the courts of one State will not, as such, be executed by another State. A suit must first be brought upon that judgment, as one would upon a promissory note, in the State in which enforcement is sought.12

12 The clause of the federal constitution which decrees that full faith and credit shall be given to the public acts of the other States then applies so that in the suit thus instituted, the judgment may not be attacked upon its merits.

Nor can one State compel another State to return to it fugitives from its justice.13

A further respect in which the members of a federal State are distinguished from local government areas, and in which they resemble sovereign States, is that they have, as has been earlier pointed out, a citizenship of their own. And this citizenship imports such an allegiance upon the part of the citizens that a breach of it may probably be punished as high treason.

As distinguished from local government areas, the States of a federal union usually hold such self-governing powers as they have in firmer legal possession. This is due to the fact that these rights are enumerated and guaranteed in the written constitution upon which the Federal Union is itself based. Thus the Supreme Court of the United States has declared that the United States is an "indestructible union composed of indestructible States." This is possibly a somewhat exaggerated statement, since, by amendment of the federal Constitution, it is conceivably possible, by strictly legal means, to deprive the States of any or all of the self-governing powers which they possess, and this could be done against the will of any particular State, since the unanimous approval of the States to amendments of the federal Constitution is not required.14 But, even if this be juristically possible, it still remains true that, as a practical proposition, the units of a Federation have a firmer pos

13 Interstate extradition is provided for by the federal Constitution, but it has been held by the Supreme Court that, though mandatory in terms, there is no constitutional means by which the States may be compelled to fulfill the obligations thus laid upon them.

"Possible exceptions to the above statement are exhibited in the constitutional provisions that no State shall be deprived of its right to equal representation in the Senate, and that new States shall not be erected out of parts of the original States or by the union of two or more of them, without the consent of the States thus concerned. It is, however, arguable that even these inhibitions can be overcome by first deleting them from the Constitution by the ordinary process of constitutional amendment.

session of their several jurisdictions than have the local governing bodies of administrative areas.

This constitutional security of the members of a federal union is, in most cases, rendered still more firm by reason of the fact that, before the establishment of the Union, they were independent States, and were, in historical fact, if not in juristic interpretation, the creators of the Union. They thus have back of them a political sentiment in support of their self-governing status to which local government areas can seldom lay claim. Not in all cases, however, have the member States of federal unions originally been independent States. Thus, in the United States, only fourteen of the present members can be said to have been originally sovereign bodiespolitic; and, in the Dominion of Canada, only Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and New Brunswick were originally separate colonies; and none of the present States of Mexico, Argentine and Brazil can lay claim to having had an independent existence prior to the establishment of the Union of which they are the constituent parts.

Another and most important distinction which places the member States of a federal union upon a plane of dignity and importance far above the most autonomous local government areas is that, subject to few restrictions, each federated body is able to determine for itself the form of its own government,-a right which includes also the authority to establish for itself such local government agencies as it sees fit. Thus, each State of Germany, or of the United States, or of Australia, and each Canton of Switzerland or Province of Canada, has its own distinct body of constitutional law which determines not only its form of government, but the principles in accordance with which it is to be operated. In sharp contrast

with this is the principle that the local subdivisions of unitary States have their forms of government determined for them by national law.

A further respect in which the member States of such federations as the United States, Canada, and Australia occupy a more independent existence than do the local government areas of any unitary States is that legislative authority is given to each federated State to determine for its own inhabitants the great body of the law, civil and criminal, substantive and procedural, which regulate their private relations, whereas local government agencies have no option but to enforce the laws which they receive from the central government. In Germany and Switzerland the entire body of the private law is placed within the legislative competency of the central government, and, in this respect, therefore, the Swiss Cantons and the individual German States resemble the local governments of unitary States. But, upon the other hand, as has been earlier pointed out, these nationally created laws are interpreted and enforced almost wholly through the governmental agencies of the States which thus gain in executive importance what they have lost legislatively as compared with the States of Australia and of the United States, or the Provinces of Canada.

In this connection it may be said generally, although the principle cannot be laid down in precise terms, that local governments, however autonomous, are conceived of as primarily the agents to carry out, within their respective areas, the will of the central government. It may be that they are permitted in large measure to select for themselves the public officials by whom they are to be locally governed, and with regard to purely local matters they may be given discretionary authority as to what regulations shall be issued and enforced, but it